Byrne's Dictionary of Irish Local History (2 page)

Adams, I. H.,
Agrarian landscape terms: a glossary for historical geography
(London, 1976).

Andrews, J. H.,
Plantation acres: an historical study of the Irish land surveyor and his maps
(Omagh, 1985).

Bourke, P. M. Austin, ‘Notes on some agricultural units of measurement in use in pre-famine Ireland' in
IHS,
xiv (1964–5), pp. 236–245.

Connor, R. D.,
The weights and measures of England
(London, 1987).

Duffy, Patrick J., ‘Social and spatial order in the MacMahon lordship of Airghialla in the late sixteenth century' in Duffy, Patrick J., Edwards, David and FitzPatrick, Elizabeth (eds),
Gaelic Ireland c.1250–1650: land lordship and settlement
(Dublin, 2001), pp. 115–137.

Erck, John Caillard (ed.),
A repertory of the enrolments of the patent rolls of Chancery in Ireland, James I,
(2 vols, 2 parts, 1846–1852).

Feenan, Dermot and Kennedy, Liam, ‘Weights and measures of the major food commodities in early-nineteenth century Ireland: a regional perspective' in
RIA Proc.,
C, cii, (2002), pp. 21–45.

Freeman, Martin (ed.),
The compossicion booke of Conought
(Dublin, 1936).

Hill, George,
An historical account of the plantation of Ulster at the commencement of the seventeenth century
(Belfast, 1877).

Hogan, James, ‘The tricha-cét and related land measures' in
RIA Proc.,
C, xxxviii, no. 7 (1928–9), pp. 148–235.

Inquisitionum in officio rotulorum cancellariae Hiberniae asservatorum repertorium
(2 vols, Dublin, 1827–9). Chancery inquisitions for Leinster and Ulster.

Larcom, Thomas, ‘On the territorial divisions of Ireland' in HC 1847 (764) L. 1.

McErlean, Thomas, ‘The Irish townland system of landscape organisation' in T. Reeves-Smyth and F. Hammond (eds),
Landscape archaeology of Ireland
(Oxford, 1983), pp. 315–39.

Morrin, James (ed.),
The patent rolls of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Philip & Mary, Elizabeth I and Charles I
(3 vols, 1861–1863).

Report of the commissioners appointed to inquire into the state of the fairs and markets in Ireland,
HC 1852–3 [1674] XLI;
Mins of evidence
, HC 1854–5 [1910] XIX.

Second report of the commissioners appointed by His Majesty to consider the subject of weights and measures,
HC 1820 (314) VII.

Wakefield, Edward,
An account of Ireland, statistical and political
(2 vols, London, 1812).

abbroachment.
The offence of forestalling or purchasing goods before they reach the market in order to retail them at a higher price.
See
forestall, regrate.

abjuration, oath of.
An oath of renunciation. Several acts were passed in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries requiring the abjuration (renunciation) of the pope's spiritual and temporal authority, Catholic doctrine and/or the claim of the Stuart pretender to the throne. The first (1657) required the oath-taker to deny the pope's spiritual and temporal authority and repudiate Catholic doctrine. The second, a contravention of the
treaty of Limerick
(which asked only for an oath of allegiance to William III), was passed by the English parliament in 1691 (3 Will. & Mary, c. 2) and required members of parliament to renounce papal authority and the pope's power to depose a monarch. This oath remained effective until the passage of the
Catholic emancipation
act in 1829. The third, passed in 1703 (1 Anne, c. 17), abjured the pretensions of the Stuarts to the throne and was imposed on Irish office-holders and professionals such as teachers, lawyers and, later, Anglican ministers. In 1709 (8 Anne, c. 3) registered Catholic priests were required to take the oath but this they largely refused to do. The oath prescribed for all office-holders by the Irish parliament following the
Act of Supremacy
(1537) was also effectively an oath of abjuration in that it required the oath-taker to acknowledge the monarch as the supreme head of the church in Ireland and England. (Fagan,
Divided loyalties,
pp. 22–48; Wall,
The penal laws,
pp. 17–19.)

abjure the realm.
To avoid a criminal prosecution in medieval times a criminal might take shelter in the sanctuary of a church and abjure the realm before a
coroner
. This meant that he must swear to leave the country by the nearest port and never return. During the reign of Henry VIII he was branded so that if he ever chose to return he would be instantly recognisable and hanged.

absence.
To safeguard the security of the Anglo-Norman colony in Ireland fines were levied on tenants holding by
knight-service
(chief tenants) who, without royal licence, absented themselves from their estates and went abroad.
See
Absentees, Statute of.

absentee landlord.
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a pejorative term to describe a landlord who resided in England and left the administration of his estate to agents or middlemen. Some landlords, of course, could not help but be absentees as they held land in different parts of the country or in both England and Ireland. (Malcomson, ‘Absenteeism', pp. 15–35.)

Absentees, Statute of.
Passed at Westminster in 1380, this legislation followed a series of earlier ordinances directed against chief tenants who absented themselves from their estates and thereby neglected the defence of the Anglo-Norman colony. It enacted the king's entitlement to two-thirds of the profits of the estates of long-term absentees and the imposition of fines for casual absences to offset the costs incurred by the state in meeting the defensive shortcomings created by their absence. Between 1483 and 1536 a further five absentee acts were passed by Irish parliaments. (Cosgrove, ‘England', pp. 526–7.)

abuttal.
A clause in a deed which identifies the location of a property being conveyed by naming the tenants of adjoining lands or physical features such as rivers or the king's highway which bound it.

accates.
(Fr.
achater
, to pay) Provisions that were purchased as opposed to those that were produced in the home.

account rolls.
Manorial accounting records maintained on the charge (rents, fines, heriots, profits) and discharge (payment of labour, purchase of seed and equipment) system. Few account rolls survive for Ireland. One of the most interesting is the
Account roll of the priory of the Holy Trinity, Dublin, 1337–1346,
edited by James Mills and published by the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (1890–1). In 1996 it was re-issued with an introduction by James Lydon and Alan Fletcher.

achievement.
Anything which a man is entitled to represent of an armorial character including a shield, crest and motto, of which the shield is the most important.

acre.
The Irish acre was the spatial measure most widely employed in Ireland from the seventeenth century and certainly the predominant unit by the nineteenth. One Irish (or plantation) acre was equivalent to 1.62 statute (English) acres. The statute acre (in use in parts of Cork, Waterford and some north-eastern counties in the nineteenth century) contains 4,840 square yards compared with the Irish measure of 7,840 square yards. In parts of Ulster, the Cunningham or Scottish acre of 6,250 square yards to the acre was employed. The difference in area between the Irish, the Cunningham and the statute acre derives from the use of a linear perch of varying length, the Irish perch measuring seven yards, the Cunningham six-and-a-quarter and the statute five-and-a-half. Prior to the general acceptance of the Irish measure a range of other measures were used, often with significant regional variations, measures which related more to the productive capacity of the land than to a specific spatial concept.
See
balliboe, ballybetagh, capell lands, cartron, collop, cowlands, gnieve, great acre, horsemen's beds, mile, ploughland, quarter, sessiagh, soum, tathe. (Andrews,
Plantation acres
, pp. 4–18; Bourke, ‘Notes on some agricultural', pp. 236–245.)

acta.
(L., pl of
actum
, act) Decrees passed by or a record of the transactions of a council, cathedral chapter, ecclesiastical court or Catholic synod.

adminicle
. (L.
adminiculum
, a prop) Any supporting or corroborative evidence necessary for the trial of a case.

admiralty court
. A court with jurisdiction over shipping and mercantile cases including piracy and prizes at sea, shipboard deaths, sailors' pay, collisions, wreck and salvage. It was established in Ireland in the sixteenth century under the supervision of the English admiralty. Although admirals were appointed in Ireland during the middle ages their appointments appear to have been honorific and maritime issues were usually dealt with in
chancery
. Provincial vice-admirals were appointed in the sixteenth century but such posts were sinecures and the functions were performed by deputies. As was the case with the English admiralty courts, the Irish court engaged in disputes with other courts, with the lord deputy and with town corporations and individuals who claimed to possess the right of jurisdiction over admiralty cases by charter. The Irish admiralty court remained subordinate to the English high court of admiralty until it became an independent court, the high court of admiralty, in 1784 (23 & 24 Geo. III, c. 14) following the passage of
Yelverton's Act.
Appeals from this court lay to the court of appeal in chancery and from thence to the Irish
privy council.
The admiralty court became a division of the high court following the re-modelling of the Irish courts by the
Judicature Act
of 1877. In 1893 it was merged with queen's bench on the death of the existing judge. (Appleby and O'Dowd, ‘The Irish admiralty', pp. 299–320.)

adventurer
. A person who advanced a sum of money under the 1642 Adventurers' Act (17 Chas. I, c. 34) for the suppression of the 1641 rebellion, the return for which was to be a proportional grant of forfeited land in Ireland. (Bottigheimer,
English money.
)

advowee
. One who has the right of presentation or
advowson
of a church
benefice
.

advowry, avowry
. In medieval times, a small annual payment made by a native Irishman to his lord to secure his freedom and the right to pursue an action in court which would be undertaken by the lord on his behalf. An action taken by an Irishman on his own behalf would fail on the simple basis that he was an Irishman. (Hand,
English law.
)